“Why, Mr. Buel,” cried the girl admiringly, “you’re beginning to talk just like an American yourself.”
“Oh, now, you are trying to make me conceited.”
Miss Jessop sighed, and shook her head.
“I had nearly forgotten,” she said, “that I despised you. I remember now why I began to walk with you. It was not to talk frivolously, but to show you the depth of my contempt! Since yesterday you have gone down in my estimation from 190 to 56.”
“Fahrenheit?”
“No, that was a Wall Street quotation. Your stock has ‘slumped,’ as we say on the Street.”
“Now you are talking Latin, or worse, for I can understand a little Latin.”
“‘Slumped’ sounds slangy, doesn’t it? It isn’t a pretty word, but it is expressive. It means going down with a run, or rather, all in a heap.”
“What have I done?”
“Nothing you can say will undo it, so there is no use in speaking any more about it. Second thoughts are best. My second thought is to say no more.”